Ella Langley has officially made Billboard history.

The country star’s massive crossover hit “Choosin’ Texas” has now spent 23 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving it the longest reign at the top of the chart by any song since the Hot 100 began in 1958.

With its 23rd week at No. 1, “Choosin’ Texas” moves past Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which had accumulated 22 weeks at the summit and previously held the all-time record.

The achievement gives Langley sole possession of one of the biggest records in American popular music.

And despite a recent Drake and Don Toliver reinterpretation bringing another wave of attention to the song, there is an important distinction in how the record should be credited.

This is Ella Langley’s record.

Drake’s version has not received an official standalone streaming release, meaning the version making Billboard history is Langley’s original “Choosin’ Texas.”

23 Weeks at No. 1

Billboard announced Tuesday that “Choosin’ Texas” had secured its 23rd total week atop the Hot 100.

The Hot 100 measures the most popular songs in the United States using a combination of official streaming activity, radio airplay and sales.

Langley’s 23 weeks at No. 1 are nonconsecutive, meaning the song has occasionally been knocked from the top position before climbing back.

That makes the longevity even more unusual.

Rather than exploding at No. 1 and remaining there through one uninterrupted promotional cycle, “Choosin’ Texas” has repeatedly demonstrated enough staying power to reclaim the top spot after other major releases briefly overtook it.

The song originally arrived in October 2025 and entered the Hot 100 the following month.

By January, it had reached the Top 10.

In February, it climbed to No. 1 for the first time.

Seven months later, it is still there.

Mariah Carey’s Record Finally Falls

The previous benchmark belonged to one of the most durable songs in chart history.

Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” accumulated 22 weeks at No. 1 across multiple holiday seasons.

Unlike a traditional hit that experiences one dominant chart run and then gradually disappears, Carey’s 1994 Christmas classic has repeatedly returned to the top of the Hot 100 as holiday listening surges every November and December.

That unusual recurring dominance allowed it to steadily build its No. 1 total over the years.

Langley has now passed it.

“Choosin’ Texas” reaching 23 weeks means no other song in the Hot 100’s 68-year history has accumulated more time at No. 1.

Immediately behind Langley and Carey are two songs that previously represented the modern benchmark for extraordinarily long chart runs.

Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, spent 19 weeks at No. 1 in 2019.

Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” later matched that 19-week total.

Both now sit four weeks behind Langley’s new record.

A Country Song Now Owns the Hot 100 Record

The achievement is also another major moment in country music’s expanding presence on the all-genre chart.

“Choosin’ Texas” is fundamentally a country record, but its audience has expanded well beyond traditional country radio.

The track blends country songwriting with elements that have allowed it to function as a mainstream pop record, while its streaming performance has helped sustain an unusually long run.

By mid-2026, the song had already accumulated more than 900 million U.S. streams and more than 1.2 billion globally, according to figures cited by the Associated Press.

Its success has occurred alongside a broader period of country dominance.

Earlier this year, country songs occupied the entire Top Five of the Hot 100 for the first time, with Langley appearing multiple times during that historic week.

“Choosin’ Texas” was No. 1, Morgan Wallen’s “Been by Now” was No. 2, Taylor Swift’s Toy Story 5 song “I Knew It, I Knew You” sat at No. 3, Langley and Wallen’s “I Can’t Love You Anymore” was No. 4 and Lefty’s “Boston” completed the sweep at No. 5.

Langley isn’t simply benefiting from that country boom.

She has become one of the artists defining it.

Miranda Lambert Helped Write the Record-Breaking Song

“Choosin’ Texas” was co-written by Langley alongside Miranda Lambert, Luke Dick and Joybeth Taylor.

The song was released as the lead single from Langley’s album Dandelion.

Its premise is classic country storytelling: romantic uncertainty, another woman and the realization that the person you want may be choosing somewhere — and someone — else.

The song turns Texas itself into part of the romantic competition.

That combination of recognizable country imagery and an emotionally direct premise helped the record travel far beyond its original genre audience.

Langley has admitted that even the people who created the song didn’t anticipate anything approaching this level of success.

“We loved the song when we wrote it,” she previously said while discussing its rise, while acknowledging that a historic run like this was impossible to predict.

That prediction would have been especially difficult considering where Langley stood commercially before “Choosin’ Texas.”

She had already begun building a substantial country audience, particularly through “You Look Like You Love Me,” her collaboration with Riley Green.

But “Choosin’ Texas” moved her into another category entirely.

From Country Star to Mainstream Chart Force

Before “Choosin’ Texas,” Langley had never reached the Hot 100 Top 10.

Now she owns the chart’s biggest longevity record.

The scale of that transformation becomes clearer when looking at her other chart performances.

“You Look Like You Love Me” peaked at No. 30.

“Choosin’ Texas” became her first Top 10 record, her first No. 1 and eventually the longest-running No. 1 in Hot 100 history.

Other Langley records have subsequently benefited from her rapidly expanding audience, with “Be Her” and her Morgan Wallen collaboration “I Can’t Love You Anymore” both reaching the Top Five.

That is the kind of career acceleration rarely produced by a single record.

“Choosin’ Texas” didn’t merely become Langley’s biggest song.

It changed the commercial scale of her career.

Then Drake Entered the Story

As if the song needed another cultural boost, Drake recently put his own spin on it.

Drake and Don Toliver appeared on a reinterpretation of “Choosin’ Texas” heard through Drake’s Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO, project.

The track takes Langley’s country hit into a completely different musical environment, with Drake and Toliver using the original as the foundation for their own Texas-heavy version.

Drake fills his contribution with references connected to the state and his longstanding relationship with Houston culture.

The remix immediately attracted attention because of the combination involved.

One of the biggest rappers in the world had jumped onto what was already the biggest song in America.

But the timing creates a potential misconception.

Drake’s Version Does Not Own the Record

Drake’s reinterpretation should not be credited with giving “Choosin’ Texas” its historic 23rd week at No. 1.

The version has circulated through the FOMO project, but Drake did not announce an official standalone release of the new music when the film arrived.

Billboard’s record belongs to Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas.”

That distinction matters because remixes can sometimes contribute directly to a song’s Hot 100 chart performance when Billboard combines eligible versions under its chart methodology.

Famous examples have included remixes that became integral to a record’s commercial run.

That is not what should be assumed here.

The historic chart run was already being driven by Langley’s original recording, and the Drake/Don Toliver reinterpretation has not been given the conventional official streaming rollout that would justify portraying Drake as responsible for the record.

Drake joined a phenomenon that was already happening.

Langley created the phenomenon.

The Timing Is Almost Perfect

The Drake version arrived just as “Choosin’ Texas” approached the most important chart milestone of its run.

Only days ago, Langley was tied with Carey at 22 weeks.

That meant every additional week at No. 1 carried historical significance.

Then came Drake’s FOMO project and the unexpected reinterpretation.

Now the original has reached 23.

The coincidence will inevitably connect Drake to conversations surrounding the record, particularly across hip-hop audiences that may have encountered “Choosin’ Texas” through his version.

But the timeline makes the distinction clear.

Langley was already tied for the all-time record before Drake’s reinterpretation surfaced.

Now she has broken it.

The Record Can Still Grow

Twenty-three weeks is not necessarily the final number.

“Choosin’ Texas” remains No. 1.

Every additional week it holds the position extends the record and makes the eventual benchmark more difficult for another artist to reach.

At 23 weeks, Langley is already four weeks ahead of the 19-week runs achieved by “Old Town Road” and “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”

She is one week ahead of Carey.

If “Choosin’ Texas” continues holding off new releases, the gap could become substantially larger before the year ends.

There is also an interesting long-term wrinkle.

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” isn’t finished charting.

Carey’s song returns every holiday season and could theoretically add additional No. 1 weeks to its career total.

That means Langley has passed a moving target rather than a permanently frozen record.

For now, however, there is no tie.

There is a new leader.

Ella Langley Is No. 1 in the Record Book

The Hot 100 has existed since 1958.

The Beatles have topped it.

Michael Jackson has topped it.

Whitney Houston has topped it.

Mariah Carey has topped it.

Beyoncé, Rihanna, Drake and Taylor Swift have topped it.

Thousands of songs have competed for the same position across nearly seven decades of American popular music.

None has spent more total weeks there than “Choosin’ Texas.”

Twenty-three weeks.

Ella Langley now owns the record.